Escaflowne is a sort of mech show right? Probably not right, but I've heard of it, never watched.
Trigun, I've seen many episodes from AS, though it came on later than other shows and I never caught two eps in a row. I didn't NOT like it, parts of it seemed overly silly. Kind of like the 'short' gags in FMA, but longer and not as funny. But I understand it was needed to break up how sad the whole situation they were all in was.
Oh maybe I was thinking of Evangelion when I read Escaflowne...not that that changes the 'nope haven't seen it' answer.
I'll cut out a big hunk for you, I haven't seen anything else you've listed other than some of Samurai Champloo and Lupin III. Love Lupin III, even with its overly washed out color 80's look. I tried Witch Hunter Robin, liked the animation, but I wasn't in the mood to start a new show so I lost interest. I've seen the names of each of the things you've listed (except Fushigi Yuugi isn't so familiar a name)
As far as fansubbed episodes go, I don't do that so much. I'd like to watch some of the Naruto eps since some of the actions sequences don't play out so well in manga. Mostly I don't since I'm short on space, and high in crappy computer.
I'm making a list for you. It's also useful in that its allowing me to list out what I have seen, am waiting to see, and need to see.
Escaflowne is a sort of mech show right? Probably not right, but I've heard of it, never watched.
Escaflowne is kind of unique-- it's a mech show set in a fuedal fantasy world. Or a feudal fantasy show with mechs in it. Sounds incredibly eye-roll-worthy, but trust me it's probably one of the top 5 anime series of the 90s, in terms of quality. (trivia: Yoko Kanno, the composer who did all the music in CB, did the score.)
Evangelion has mechs too. Evangelion is... both very good and very bad and sometimes in the middle. It's psychological and disturbing and interesting, but overall its monster-of-the-week formula gets tired, and by the end of the series it collapses under its own Freudian pop psychology. But it can be engrossing and it still wins for one of the most disturbing anime scenes I've watched: a scene were one mech violently attacks another, with music and with context and... guh. I can't explain it outside of context but trust me it was very disturbing in its violence. Not blood quanity, just violence level. Definitely watch Evangelion from the beginning if it starts up on AS, but don't spend a lot of money on it-- there's better anime out there for $25 a DVD.
Lupin III is from the 70s, actually. I love Lupin, though it took me a few eps to get into it. After watching Lupin III I could tell that some of the charm in the dynamic of CB was reminiscent of the character dynamics of Lupin III. One group catches criminals and one group committs crime, but they're remarkably similar and the shows often have the same caper feel.
As far as fansubbed episodes go, I don't do that so much. I'd like to watch some of the Naruto eps since some of the actions sequences don't play out so well in manga. Mostly I don't since I'm short on space, and high in crappy computer.
Most of what I recommend will be anime, though I can think of a few manga titles you might get into. There are some solutions: a lot of anime episodes are posted on youtube.com these days (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Blood+, Sailor Moon), though sometimes they're split into two or three segments of 9-10 minutes. You can also burn stuff to DVDs; I've done that a lot to free up space.
I'll talk about a few titles right here:
Samurai Champloo is fun and I recommend it as an action, cute way to kill time. It's visually lush and its humor is inspired, but it suffers from lack of direction, lack of overall plot, and lack of raison d'etre. Still, if you give up on any expectation of plotlines, it's very amusing fun and the three main characters are loveable.
Ranma 1/2 is a manga and a five-season anime, all out on DVD and in english bookshelves. Ranma 1/2 is what Naoko Takeuchi did before she did InuYasha, and I will always love Ranma 1/2 more than IY. Where IY has pretense of drama, Ranma 1/2 is pure martial arts action / romantic comedy. It basically created the martial arts comedy romance genre, or at least was the most defined title representing it. Ranma 1/2 is addictive candy-coated silly fun. It's often repetitive, but unlike IY, it has no pretenses toward a destination, so you never get impatient with it. Basically its about a boy who falls into a cursed wellspring and from that point on every time he's hit with cold water he turns into a female version of himself. Hot water turns him back. His absent-minded father gets him betrothed to the daughter of a dojo owner (who has two other daughters), and the show starts with Ranma meeting the Tendo family and then attending high school with his new fiance. After that comes five seasons and 32 volumes of crazy characters and loveable mishaps. Some of them might remind you of IY--- characters like Koga the wolf-demon, Myouga the flea, and Sango are lifted almost verbatim from Ranma 1/2 characters (Ryouga, Happosai, and Ukyo, respectively). But where IY does it decent, Ranma 1/2 does it great. Go to your local library and pick up the first three volumes of the manga. You'll love it. It's also a classic anime title. Lots of in-jokes.
*Ranma 1/2 is also one of those shows that a lot of other anime series tried to copy after it was popular. For instance, in the first episode of Bleach the main orange-haired kid's father randomly attacks him over breakfast and engages him in a martial arts fight. That father/son relationship was totally stolen from Ranma 1/2. Ranma was such a major manga/anime title in the 90s; for a long time Naoko Takeuchi was the best-selling manga artist/writer in Japan, having major hits with Maison Ikkoku (I'm told that's very good), Ranma 1/2, and then Inuyasha. I've seen a lot of stuff in anime that references or borrows from Ranma.
I'll talk about Trigun here because you've seen bits of it already: forget the humor stuff that might remind you of FMA (actually, for the first season FMA reminded me often of Trigun)-- that's small stuff. That's the candy distraction to entertain you while in the background people are dying and hearts are breaking and drama is building. And forget watching it out of order. Watching Trigun out of order is possible, but it seriously hurts your viewing experience in ways that you can't really understand until you've watched it once all the way through, the way its meant to be seen. Trigun is a drama that dresses itself with comedy, especially in the first half of the show. Like I said, FMA reminded me of Trigun in a lot of ways, and that was one of them. Trigun was the flat-out angstiest anime I'd ever seen until I watched FMA. Trigun is... it WAS my all-time favorite anime until I watched FMA. I've held Trigun close to my heart for about 6 years now. I can't recommend it enough: I could gush about it for hours and I *have* written essays about it. The reason you should watch Trigun is that it's different from many, many anime series you'll see: not in content but in theme and structure. Trigun is a one-man character study. It's one single long emotional analysis of Vash, from start to finish. That's not something you normally see in anime, and its done very very well. The show is philosophical and emotional, though you don't always realize how much one incident matters until several episodes have past and you look back on it and go "Oh. Oh." Intellectually Trigun was candy to me, because I love analyzing literary characters and Vash is very much a literary character. Trigun has several characters that embody traditional literary archetypes and beg, just beg for further thought and discussion.
The description "was needed to break up how sad the whole situation they were all in was" is both wrong and right. But I can't explain why without a detailed and spoilery breakdown of the show's characters and running themes, and I'm just not going to go there.
What you might find interesting is that for several years if someone was curious about anime I'd tell them on reflex to watch Cowboy Bebop first and then Trigun second. CB is an anime that's very accessible to non-anime fans or new anime fans, and Trigun takes equally engaging characters, similarly action-heavy content, but adds a philosophical and emotional layer on top of it. The only real downside to Trigun is that its cell animation was often low-budget in comparison to the stuff you see coming out in the last 3 years (then again, so is CB.)
Fushigi Yuugi is good (I was quite addicted to it for a while) but, like Evangelion, I'm hesitant to recommend it to you when I could recommend things that are better. Fushigi Yuugi is basically an anime version of The NeverEnding Story, but with a large romantic subplot and a bodycount. It's addicting and only ran for two seasons (very actiony 52 episodes), but it doesn't hold up as well in comparison to shows like FMA, Monster, Fruits Basket.
Hellsing is a 13 episode series that's fun and odd. Sometimes its erratic and frustrating (not in a deliberate way like FLCL, just inconsistant), but it takes on the vampire gothic horror genre with gusto. I liked it but didn't love it; donna_c_punk swears that the manga is a million times better.
Witch Hunter Robin is good. Like Samurai Champloo, Hellsing, and Evangelion it sits in that "well-made, decent" category that sits above "mediocre" (Inuyasha, some of the Gundams) and "crap" (DBZ, some of the Gundams, most of anime), but still doesn't quite measure up to the "really good or great" category. It has serious high points but is hindered by flaws. The only really flaw to WHR is its pacing-- its slow, and sometimes boring. But if you have the time, overall the series is good and I recommend it. It resolves strongly, but unfortunately with little surprise. I predicted a lot of things in WHR before they happened, but I still enjoyed it and I give it a thumbs up.
There's other stuff that I'll talk about in the list I'm making.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 10:54 pm (UTC)Trigun, I've seen many episodes from AS, though it came on later than other shows and I never caught two eps in a row. I didn't NOT like it, parts of it seemed overly silly. Kind of like the 'short' gags in FMA, but longer and not as funny. But I understand it was needed to break up how sad the whole situation they were all in was.
Oh maybe I was thinking of Evangelion when I read Escaflowne...not that that changes the 'nope haven't seen it' answer.
I'll cut out a big hunk for you, I haven't seen anything else you've listed other than some of Samurai Champloo and Lupin III. Love Lupin III, even with its overly washed out color 80's look. I tried Witch Hunter Robin, liked the animation, but I wasn't in the mood to start a new show so I lost interest. I've seen the names of each of the things you've listed (except Fushigi Yuugi isn't so familiar a name)
As far as fansubbed episodes go, I don't do that so much. I'd like to watch some of the Naruto eps since some of the actions sequences don't play out so well in manga. Mostly I don't since I'm short on space, and high in crappy computer.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 04:11 am (UTC)Escaflowne is a sort of mech show right? Probably not right, but I've heard of it, never watched.
Escaflowne is kind of unique-- it's a mech show set in a fuedal fantasy world. Or a feudal fantasy show with mechs in it. Sounds incredibly eye-roll-worthy, but trust me it's probably one of the top 5 anime series of the 90s, in terms of quality. (trivia: Yoko Kanno, the composer who did all the music in CB, did the score.)
Evangelion has mechs too. Evangelion is... both very good and very bad and sometimes in the middle. It's psychological and disturbing and interesting, but overall its monster-of-the-week formula gets tired, and by the end of the series it collapses under its own Freudian pop psychology. But it can be engrossing and it still wins for one of the most disturbing anime scenes I've watched: a scene were one mech violently attacks another, with music and with context and... guh. I can't explain it outside of context but trust me it was very disturbing in its violence. Not blood quanity, just violence level. Definitely watch Evangelion from the beginning if it starts up on AS, but don't spend a lot of money on it-- there's better anime out there for $25 a DVD.
Lupin III is from the 70s, actually. I love Lupin, though it took me a few eps to get into it. After watching Lupin III I could tell that some of the charm in the dynamic of CB was reminiscent of the character dynamics of Lupin III. One group catches criminals and one group committs crime, but they're remarkably similar and the shows often have the same caper feel.
As far as fansubbed episodes go, I don't do that so much. I'd like to watch some of the Naruto eps since some of the actions sequences don't play out so well in manga. Mostly I don't since I'm short on space, and high in crappy computer.
Most of what I recommend will be anime, though I can think of a few manga titles you might get into. There are some solutions: a lot of anime episodes are posted on youtube.com these days (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Blood+, Sailor Moon), though sometimes they're split into two or three segments of 9-10 minutes. You can also burn stuff to DVDs; I've done that a lot to free up space.
I'll talk about a few titles right here:
Samurai Champloo is fun and I recommend it as an action, cute way to kill time. It's visually lush and its humor is inspired, but it suffers from lack of direction, lack of overall plot, and lack of raison d'etre. Still, if you give up on any expectation of plotlines, it's very amusing fun and the three main characters are loveable.
Ranma 1/2 is a manga and a five-season anime, all out on DVD and in english bookshelves. Ranma 1/2 is what Naoko Takeuchi did before she did InuYasha, and I will always love Ranma 1/2 more than IY. Where IY has pretense of drama, Ranma 1/2 is pure martial arts action / romantic comedy. It basically created the martial arts comedy romance genre, or at least was the most defined title representing it. Ranma 1/2 is addictive candy-coated silly fun. It's often repetitive, but unlike IY, it has no pretenses toward a destination, so you never get impatient with it. Basically its about a boy who falls into a cursed wellspring and from that point on every time he's hit with cold water he turns into a female version of himself. Hot water turns him back. His absent-minded father gets him betrothed to the daughter of a dojo owner (who has two other daughters), and the show starts with Ranma meeting the Tendo family and then attending high school with his new fiance. After that comes five seasons and 32 volumes of crazy characters and loveable mishaps. Some of them might remind you of IY--- characters like Koga the wolf-demon, Myouga the flea, and Sango are lifted almost verbatim from Ranma 1/2 characters (Ryouga, Happosai, and Ukyo, respectively). But where IY does it decent, Ranma 1/2 does it great. Go to your local library and pick up the first three volumes of the manga. You'll love it. It's also a classic anime title. Lots of in-jokes.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 04:46 am (UTC)The description "was needed to break up how sad the whole situation they were all in was" is both wrong and right. But I can't explain why without a detailed and spoilery breakdown of the show's characters and running themes, and I'm just not going to go there.
What you might find interesting is that for several years if someone was curious about anime I'd tell them on reflex to watch Cowboy Bebop first and then Trigun second. CB is an anime that's very accessible to non-anime fans or new anime fans, and Trigun takes equally engaging characters, similarly action-heavy content, but adds a philosophical and emotional layer on top of it. The only real downside to Trigun is that its cell animation was often low-budget in comparison to the stuff you see coming out in the last 3 years (then again, so is CB.)
Fushigi Yuugi is good (I was quite addicted to it for a while) but, like Evangelion, I'm hesitant to recommend it to you when I could recommend things that are better. Fushigi Yuugi is basically an anime version of The NeverEnding Story, but with a large romantic subplot and a bodycount. It's addicting and only ran for two seasons (very actiony 52 episodes), but it doesn't hold up as well in comparison to shows like FMA, Monster, Fruits Basket.
Hellsing is a 13 episode series that's fun and odd. Sometimes its erratic and frustrating (not in a deliberate way like FLCL, just inconsistant), but it takes on the vampire gothic horror genre with gusto. I liked it but didn't love it;
Witch Hunter Robin is good. Like Samurai Champloo, Hellsing, and Evangelion it sits in that "well-made, decent" category that sits above "mediocre" (Inuyasha, some of the Gundams) and "crap" (DBZ, some of the Gundams, most of anime), but still doesn't quite measure up to the "really good or great" category. It has serious high points but is hindered by flaws. The only really flaw to WHR is its pacing-- its slow, and sometimes boring. But if you have the time, overall the series is good and I recommend it. It resolves strongly, but unfortunately with little surprise. I predicted a lot of things in WHR before they happened, but I still enjoyed it and I give it a thumbs up.
There's other stuff that I'll talk about in the list I'm making.